On November 22nd his Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, The Emir of Qatar officially inaugurated the Pearl Gas to Liquids (GTL) Project, the largest GTL plant in the world and the largest energy project in the state of Qatar. Pearl GTL is a fully integrated upstream/downstream, world-scale project located in Ras Laffan Industrial City, 80km north of Doha.
It captures the full value chain from offshore development through onshore gas processing to refining of finished products and the distribution of these products right across the world in one project. When fully operational, Pearl GTL will have the capacity to produce 140,000bpd of high quality GTL products (gasoil, naphtha, kerosene, normal-paraffin and lubricants base oils), thereby help meet the increasing global demand for high quality hydrocarbon.
It captures the full value chain from offshore development through onshore gas processing to refining of finished products and the distribution of these products right across the world in one project. When fully operational, Pearl GTL will have the capacity to produce 140,000bpd of high quality GTL products (gasoil, naphtha, kerosene, normal-paraffin and lubricants base oils), thereby help meet the increasing global demand for high quality hydrocarbon.
It will also produce 120,000bpd of Natural Gas Liquids (liquefied petroleum gas and condensate) and ethane. The project is being developed in two trains and major construction was completed at the end of 2010. The first train started up in Q1 2011 and the first commercial shipment of gasoil was exported in June 2011.
The second train of the plant started up in November 2011 by bringing in sour gas from offshore wells. The gas processing plant has come quickly on line delivering on-spec gas, condensate, LPG and sulphur. The first of the four world scale Air Separation Units in Train 2 is also on-line producing on-spec oxygen.
